Psychomachia
by Omega19x
Summary: Mello swore that he would find Kira, no matter what it took. What he never realized was just how much of himself he had to lose. - COMPLETE
1. Prologue

Insert Disclaimer Here: I do not own Death Note. I do, however, possess a very dark and twisted mind at times. And writing this fanfiction challenged me to use it. I warn anyone reading this story – it is not for the faint of heart.

...

_Lightning shattered the clouds and thunder roared overhead. Rain streaked like tears across the windowpane. Beneath it, a thin little boy sat on the stairs, wrapped in a large towel. He clutched an old rosary in his hands._

"_Confiteor Deo omnipoténti…" he sunk against the wall. Soaked strands of blond hair drooped over large, blue eyes. "beátæ Mariæ semper Vírgini, beáto Michaéli Archángelo…"_

_Another boy of about the same age peeked over the banister. He watched the stranger curiously for a few minutes before tiptoeing down the stairs. He'd heard of other kids getting scared or running off on their first day here, but this was the first time anyone made Roger chase them across the roof. And he did it in the middle of a downpour, no less! _

"_What're you doing?" he asked, crouching on the step next to him. _

"… _Praying…" the boy answered. His voice was timid, but firm. _

"_Praying?" _

"_Yeah. Mama always said… you're supposed to say prayer when you find yourself in big trouble, and you don't know what else to do …"_

"_Does it work?" _

"_I… I'm not sure…" _

"_Can I try?" _

_The blond boy raised an eyebrow. He let the rosary slide off his hand. _

"_What do you need it for?" _

"_For when you teach me how you got up on the roof. That was so cool!" he answered through a lopsided grin. "I'm Matt, by the way. Did they give you a new name yet?" _

"_Yeah… It's Mello."_

_Another thunderclap shook the wall. _

"_I'll show you tomorrow." He slowly smiled. "But you have to help me dismantle that ladder first. Okay? With two of us, I bet we could have it apart in ten minutes." _

"_You got a deal!" _


	2. Superbia

...

"The proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors.  
The first he does not admit of; the last he does not concern himself about."

- William Hazlitt

...

...

It was ten minutes before midnight.

Ross went first. Then Bid. Then Humphreys. One by one, the mafia henchmen fell to the floor. For some, death held their hearts in its vice, squeezing until their arms fell numb and even the veins in their fingers ran dry. For others, death strangled them slowly, watching them break into a cold sweat as they gasped for air. But regardless of how they reacted, it was all the same.

Mello sprang from the sofa as his mind recoiled from the sudden attack. It only took about two seconds for Mello to realize exactly what was happening - in spite of the surveillance and despite the Shinigami, the taskforce had returned with the other notebook. Within their ranks, Kira was alive and well.

"Fuck."

Mello's eyes darted in four directions at once. The only ones still alive were the scapegoats, the errand boys and the youngest initiates. Their names remained hidden, not because they protected their secrets so well, but because they simply hadn't done anything worthy of attracting enough attention. The mafia only kept them around in case their deaths might be useful.

Something slammed against the main door. The metal winced under the pressure. It was faint, but Mello could hear it start to buckle. There wasn't time to contact Matt and there was barely time to bail.

Mello leapt over the back of the couch and grabbed the nearest henchman by the elbow. "Get the notebook. Follow me!"

The teenager tried to nod, but fear had paralyzed almost every part of his body. His knees quaked and his throat hitched. His panicked bladder answered for him, spilling urine down the front of his pants.

"The rest of you, take as many of them out as you can!"

"But…" there were a few whimpers of protest, but Mello sliced through those as he sprinted up the stairs. He shot them a backwards scowl that even a shinigami would be incapable of producing.

"Worthless sacks of shit, if they don't kill you, I'll kill you myself!!" he shrieked over the banister.

A few hurried footsteps could be heard in the distance before the sound of gunshots hitting metal drowned them out. Unable to break down the door, the taskforce must have been firing at the hinges.

Mello bit back a laugh. The only way those morons could slow down the taskforce would be to give them a little target practice before they had to face the big guns. But they'd buy him enough time to reach his command center and power up the detonators. It was all he needed them for.

Mello's command center was both the safest and deadliest place within the mafia compound. From within one small room, Mello could devise and execute almost anything. He had full access to any information, classified or not. He had secure communication channels to the most powerful governments and terrorist networks in the world. He had control over enough money, enough weapons, enough assets to bully anyone, even Kira, into submission.

But at the same time, amidst the twisted mass of monitors stretching from floor to ceiling, Mello was only one man. And once the destruction sequence was initiated, all of that data would be erased. No information, no network, no money, no Matt… The only thing that would separate Mello from the Japanese taskforce would be a small metal door to this otherwise inescapable room. To anyone else, it would be suicide. But to Mello, it was a contingency plan.

His fingers tore across the keyboard, flawlessly launching the destruction sequence. A few of the small explosives went off, burying the entrance that had just been breached. Every other room except this one lost power. As the feed broke into static, he realized he'd been just a few moments too late. They'd made it in.

"Shit…"

There was no turning back now. This place was going up in flames – and his enemies would just have to go along with it.

He began recording one last transmission –

"Matt? Matt… Is this fucking thing recording? How do you even tell?! Fuck it, Matt. They're here…"

...

...

"_Fucking Kira…" _

_Mello slammed the door as he stormed into the common room. The metal handle punched the drywall for the third time in two weeks, and Mello would have probably punched it too, had the door not beaten him to it. He never could stand being second, not even to a door. _

_Some of the newer children looked up, but most willfully ignored the outburst. The thunder roaring outside was nothing compared to the storm that was brewing inside. In moments like that, Mello was like a twister. It's best just to get out of his way and let him blow through. The storm will be over in a few minutes and the damage will be relatively minor. Stand in his path, however, and you risk being leveled. _

"_Grades aren't due for another week." Matt paused his game and looked up at the furious face now glaring down at him. He cocked a goofy grin and received a growl in return. "So what's with the door abuse?" _

_Mello said nothing. He just slammed the second door as he left. Matt, of course, took that as an unspoken cue to follow. As soon as they were both in the privacy of the hallway, Mello answered, just as Matt knew he would. _

"_L's dead." He whispered._

_The words echoed in the stillness of the hall, And no matter how many doors Mello proceeded to slam, nothing could drown them out. _

"_You can't be serious." _

_Matt's voice trembled as he struggled to wrap his mind around it. As students of the Wammy House, they were both extremely intelligent, trained to be analytical, rational, and above all else, logical. And while it may have seemed completely illogical to believe that L was immortal, somehow beyond the reach of death itself, they were both guilty of harboring that illusion. _

_L wasn't immortal. _

"_He was killed by Kira…" Mello choked on a tear he refused to shed. _

"_Then he chose…?" _

"_No. He didn't choose." Mello growled. "He died before he could choose. So I chose for him." _

_Matt followed Mello into his bedroom, and watched him drag a small backpack from under his bed. Tearing through his drawers in a fit of rage, he crammed about three days worth of clothes into the bag. That and a few bars of chocolate were all that would fit. _

"_You didn't choose yourself?" Matt asked, ducking under a particularly large book. _

" _Roger called both of us in. He wanted us to work together to catch Kira. Well, I don't get along with Near and I'm not going to play that game. So Near's the one who's going to succeed L." he tore pages from his research binders and stuffed them into the bag as well. "Which means I'm leaving." _

"_Hang on! Leaving? As in leaving Wammy's?!" Matt stepped between Mello and the door. "Where the hell are you going to go? What are you going to do?"_

"_What do you think I'm going to do, Matt?!" Mello shouted, grabbing him by the shirt and trying to throw him aside, "I'm going to catch Kira before Near does!" _

_His voice was angry, but it wasn't impulsive. Upon closer inspection, Matt realized the pages Mello had ripped from the binders were all specially marked. He had been planning for this possibility for quite some time. _

"_I know that." Matt didn't budge. Instead, he grinned. _

_Most of the other students couldn't stand in front of Mello for more than ten seconds before either losing their nerve or taking a knee to the gut. But over the years, Matt had somehow earned Mello's trust and friendship. If Mello had a plan, Matt was always in on it. This time wasn't going to be an exception. _

"_What I want to know is HOW you're going to do it! And, well, if you're going to let me in on the fun."_

_Mello's scowl lightened to a thin smile, and he laughed under his breath. _

_Some things never changed. _

"_L already began negotiations with several world governments. Near'll continue with that for sure. And that's where I'll get the better of him" Mello scoffed. "The governments, the police… They're all such hypocrites. They might say they're interested in chasing after Kira, but they're not. First of all, they're cowards. If they weren't so afraid of getting killed, L would probably still be alive. And second, they like Kira. Whether they want to admit it or not, they all agree with him and want him to succeed. A false sense of order, the illusion of justice… It's what people like that have stood for since the beginning of time. The only people left who have any real vested interest in stopping Kira are those in danger of being killed by him – criminals." _

_Matt simply listened. Suddenly, Mello's term papers for the past three semesters made a lot more sense. _

"_L used the tactic when he hired con artists like Aiber and Wedy, but he didn't take it far enough. It's the mafia men that have the money. They have an almost endless supply of resources at their disposal. And most importantly, they have the drive. They're at the top of the wanted lists in almost every country, so they have nothing to lose and everything to gain." _

"_That makes a lot of sense. But how exactly do you plan on convincing mafia men to lend you money and resources?"_

"_Matt, they won't be lending it to me. They'll be giving it to me." Mello grinned. "Because I'll be in charge." _

_Matt's jaw dropped. He blinked a few times, wondering if he heard that correctly. _

"_It won't happen overnight, but, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to beat Near." He grabbed Matt by the shoulder, this time in a much friendlier gesture. "What I need you to do is lay low for now. But once I'm in, I'll call for you. Don't worry. I wouldn't think of going after Kira without you, buddy."_

"_You'd better not." Matt scolded. A loud thunderclap shook the walls forebodingly. "You're gonna be okay out there? Right?" _

_Lightning broke the sky. _

"_Trust me. I'll be fine." _

_It wasn't for a lack of trust that Matt hesitated. _

"_Okay… But I want you to have something…" _

_Matt reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small leather bag. His fingers carefully conditioned by joysticks and game controllers, he undid the complex knots in a matter of seconds. Mello raised an eyebrow as Matt spilled a long chain of red beads into his other hand. It was an old rosary, one that he hadn't seen in almost eight years._

"_You gave it to me on the roof, remember? Back when we were both kids." Matt tried to smile. "I don't know if you believe in that kind of thing anymore. But I want you to take it with you. You know… Just in case." _

_Mello nodded. He silently took it, and threw it over his head like a necklace. _

"… _Thanks." _

_From the window, Matt watched Mello march into the downpour. He was unfazed by the lightning and unimpeded by the thunder. He pushed the large metal gates open with his bare hands, and left them to the devices of the wind. In a few more minutes, he was gone and Matt was alone. _

_At the time, neither Matt nor Mello had any idea of what they were getting themselves into. But one thing was certain – there was no turning back now… _

...

...

"Don't move. I've already destroyed both entrances." Mello growled, clutching the main detonator in his hand. His eyes twitched. "This is your only warning. The next bomb will destroy the entire building."

The taskforce stood their ground.

"Give it up, Mello. There's nowhere left to run."

The silence was deafening. There were at least five guns pointed at his head, and his first name was already etched in the notebook. Anyone else in that position would have probably given up, but Mello refused to even justify that option with a response. Instead, he just pressed the button.

The mafia base burst into flames, and Mello leapt face-first into the inferno.


	3. Ira

...

"Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun.  
To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past,  
to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come,  
to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given  
and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.  
The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself.  
The skeleton at the feast is you."

- Frederick Buechner

...

...

Clouds of smoke billowed over the city, dusting the streets with a storm of ash and soot. Sirens howled in the distance, but Mello couldn't hear them. His ears still rang from the blast, and all he could hear was his heart pounding hard against his chest. It thumped faster and faster, until Mello swore it would be the next thing to explode. Perhaps it was a blessing that he hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of his mangled reflection in the grimy puddles below. The putrid combination of rotting leather and burning flesh should have been strong enough to make even the strongest man retch.

But Mello sprinted through the alleyways as though none of that mattered, as though none of it had even happened.

His mind jumped erratically from disconnected fragment to disconnected fragment. They were coming. They were here. They were around every corner, and that's why he kept running. He couldn't remember when he actually pushed the button, just the one, maybe two seconds of silence before everything blew up in his face.

The ash turned to rain as he lost the confines of the tall buildings and darted along a deserted patch of road. Other than his own footsteps, everything was deathly silent. Streetlights flickered, illuminating the road only long enough to put another moth out if its misery before falling back into darkness.

Mello stumbled over the curb, skidding painfully into a mix of gravel, crumbling brick and shards of glass. His boots slipped as he tried to push himself to his feet. For the first time, he felt the pain. It started as a burning sensation in his hands, spreading quickly up his left arm, across his chest and over the left side of his face. At first, it was like needles. Then it was like fire, a searing pain the likes of which even Hell could not create. He clenched his jaw to hold back the scream.

Mello trembled and clutched his thin stomach. Coughing and gagging, he expelled a mix of black phlegm and bile onto the gravel. It looked like tar, and smelled worse.

Too proud to crawl, but too weak to stand, he somehow managed to stagger toward the nearest shelter. It was once a cheap motel, the kind of shady establishment that rented rooms by the hour and only washed the sheets after the unlucky patrons started to decompose. But now, there were no hookers or drug dealers prowling along the outer hallways, just rats. The building was nothing more than a pile of rubble and rust. Half the roof was missing, mold grew freely on the walls and most the doors had fallen off their hinges.

Mello cocked a twisted smile, until a dry, almost guttural laugh, sputtered from his throat.

"I made it…"

...

...

_Thunder cracked as a heavy rain soaked the streets of London. It was a cold October night. Wind rattled the shutters above, hiding the sound of small feet in the large puddles below. _

_Cold, soaked and almost exhausted, a young Mello crept through the city. He avoided the strong glow of the streetlights as best he could. On nights like this, the only people crazy enough to be out and about were the troublemakers and those who just had nowhere else to go. And if the past few months were any indication, Mello was obviously both of those. _

_He'd left the comforts of the Wammy House behind and never once looked back. The thought, however, had crossed his mind more than once, but he trampled on it, buried it alive, and left it to die there. He just couldn't bring himself to stand in front of Near again, not until he'd finally beaten him at his own game – not until he hunted down Kira and proven to everyone that he was L's rightful successor. _

_But right now, catching Kira felt a lot like a pipe dream. And right now, Mello was no detective. _

_He was, at best, a misfit and a vagrant. At worst, he was a criminal himself. He'd slept behind trashcans, bathed in the rain and snuck chocolate bars from storefront displays to stave off the pangs of hunger. He ran with petty thieves, planning their small heists for a growing fee. He worked alongside small street gangs, twisting and manipulating them out of whatever he could carry. He'd robbed, and been robbed in return. Sometimes he deserved it, and sometimes, like tonight, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. _

"_Well, look what we've got here." _

_A brawny man stepped out of the shadows. He was at least twice Mello's size, and every pound was immediately intimidating. His arms were covered in a mixture of old military tattoos and racist insignia. He was missing several teeth and had gained a couple of new cuts and bruises since Mello had seen him last. He cracked his knuckles, revealing the letters K-A-R-L that were inked over his left fist. _

"_It's the punk kid that thought he could mess with my brother and still live." _

_Those thick knuckles wrapped around Mello's shirt and jerked him forward before he even had the chance to move. _

"_You ratted him out to Guido for five hundred pounds, you double crossing son of a bitch." He spat in Mello's face. "So he'll be sitting in the slammer while Guido hits the road."_

_Inside, Mello gulped, but he couldn't show it. If there was one thing these people relished, it was fear. Only the strong survived. Fear was enough to get you killed._

_Mello played cool, and wrapped his hands around on Karl's wrists. He thrust a foot into his abdomen to keep his attention right where he wanted it. He had to remind himself – Karl may be big, but the man was still an idiot. _

"_Calm down, Karl…" he grunted, trying to pull himself free. "I know where Guido's men are hiding, and I'll even let you in on that little secret for two hundred pounds." _

_His offer, though, wasn't accepted. Karl's body twitched with rage and he replied by throwing Mello as hard as he could into the nearby trashcans. The boy slid down the alley along with them. _

"_Fucking bastard!" he charged after him, swinging a piece of metal pipe that had fallen out of the garbage. "I'm gonna' beat your head in so far, even your mother won't recognize your fucking face!" _

_Mello gasped as the pipe missed his head by a very narrow margin. He pulled out a knife and lunged forward, slashing at Karl's leg in an attempt to sever the femoral artery. If successful, the man would be dead in ten, maybe five, seconds. The idiot probably wouldn't even know he was dying until he hit the hard concrete. _

_Unfortunately for Mello, while he may have been an idiot… he was still big. And when his knife only grazed the outside of Karl's thigh, the pipe smashed hard against his back. Mello's body slammed against the cement, but he kept fighting. They traded blows- a stab wound to the back of the hand, a knee to the gut, a bloody nose, a broken jaw, and they didn't stop until the sound of police sirens echoed in the distance. _

_Karl pulled Mello to his feet._

"_We'll finish this later." He spat. _

_Mello hung limply, positioning the knife in his hand. Three Karls rippled in his line of sight. _

"_Bastard… We'll finish this now." Mello growled, thrusting the knife as hard as he could between the middle Karl's ribs. The pipe fell to the concrete below, and Mello crumbled beside it. _

_While Karl staggered, Mello scrambled to his feet. _

_The fight was loud enough to wake the hounds. Their howls were certainly loud enough to wake everyone else. And all the while, the sirens were coming closer. Mello was scared, and rightfully so. He didn't know what would happen, and he didn't want to stick around long enough to find out. If Karl was caught, so be it. If Karl was dead, it was even more of a reason to run. If Karl was dead, it meant he'd killed someone. If Karl was dead, it was going to attract a lot of attention, maybe even Kira's attention. _

_No, it was worse than that… Mello thought to himself as he forced himself to run faster, If Karl was dead, then he was no better than Kira. He was no better than the one person who he was trying to catch…_

_He ran, even as the sun started to peek from below the horizon. He ran until the rain had washed away all the blood and his legs burned from exhaustion. He ran until he reached an old row of condemned buildings on the outskirts of town, and only then did he stop to catch his breath._

_There was very little left of the old inn. It had been ravaged by fire, and almost everything was completely destroyed. The building next to it may have once been a pub. It was still standing, but it looked as though it wouldn't be for long. The windows had been boarded up, the roof had collapsed, and the walls swayed with the wind. _

_It wasn't perfect, but it would do. _

_Mello pried one of the boards off the window, and climbed in. The smell of mildew, rat droppings and rotting ale made him immediately throw up, and he landed in his own vomit as he leapt down. _

_At that moment, he didn't think it could get any worse. He was cold, wet and hungry. He'd taken a brutal beating and there wasn't a part of him that didn't hurt. And on top of it all, he was downright terrified. But at least, for the time being, he was safe. _

...

...

Mello's entire body trembled, but he eventually managed to pull back a broken door and saunter into a small room. The shells of dead roaches cracked under the weight of his boots while the ones that still lived scattered through cracks in the farthest wall.

There was no mistaking the smell that clung to the room. Someone died in here and the corpse had been left to rot. It might have been stuffed in the mattress, or hidden what was left of the closet. He couldn't see it, but he knew it was there.

When he was younger, he might have even stopped a minute to wonder what had happened. Who was the body, and what had they done to deserve dying here, alone and forgotten. But now, it wasn't that he didn't care, it was that he couldn't. He couldn't stop to think about it long enough without the overwhelming feeling that he was going to be next. In the grand scheme of things, he'd only just add to the stench. As far as death was concerned, he'd grown cold.

In the safety of his temporary hideout, Mello sunk to his knees, but he didn't, and couldn't, pass out.

He knew they were still out there somewhere. Whether they were digging through the rubble looking for survivors or combing the city for the missing members of the mafia, it didn't matter. They were out there.

And he wouldn't, no, he absolutely couldn't be next.

He reached inside what was left of his vest, and somehow managed to draw his gun. His hands shook so badly he couldn't even aim it. But Mello didn't really care. Right now, all he needed was the small bag hidden in the bottom of the magazine.

There were no thoughts, just actions. He dumped the powder on the floor and bumped it along with the roach droppings.

The surge it produced was immediate and intense. This wasn't just good coke, or even mediocre crank. This was the good stuff. He didn't know what Ross cut that batch of meth with, but it would be more than enough to keep him going for at least six hours. By then, Matt would be here. And it would only be a matter of time before the Death Note was back in their possession and Kira would die by their hands.


	4. Invidia

...

"There is no such thing as a good influence.  
Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.  
He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.  
His virtues are not real to him. His sins… are borrowed.  
He becomes an echo of someone else's music,  
an actor of a part that has not been written for him."

- Oscar Wilde

...

...

It was the middle of the night, but inside his apartment, it might as well be three in the afternoon. The lights were on, the air was cranked, and three television sets blared a mix of breaking news and bad infomercials.

Matt, however, was completely undistracted from his hand-held game. His hands moved furiously across the buttons, but the creases in the couch proved that he'd hardly moved all day. A striped shirt had been discarded over one arm, and a vest over the back. Within arm's reach, an ashtray overflowed onto the carpet. Matt hardly gave it a second glance as he shoved another dying butt right in the middle. He'd get around to emptying it eventually.

Yawning, Matt finally peeled himself from the couch.

The day was starting to get pretty damn boring.

He opened the fridge with disinterest, and drank a mouthful of milk right out of the carton. It was two days past its expiration date, but he couldn't taste any difference. As he put it back, he took a chocolate bar from the shelf. Truth be told, the bars belonged to Mello, but Matt wasn't about to let that stop him. It'd been more than a week since Mello last contacted him, and about a month since they'd even been in the same room. He saved the chocolate, just in case, but he wasn't expecting a visit anytime soon.

Matt pulled the wrapper off the bar, and broke off a tiny cube in his fingers. He put it on his tongue like a strip of acid and just let it melt. He could see why Mello liked it so much.

He was about to break off a second piece when he heard his laptop chime. The sound could only mean one thing.

"He didn't…" Matt whispered to himself, trading the chocolate for another cigarette. He cracked his knuckles and took a drag.

Ashes fell between the keys as Matt toggled through various applications. Between reports from government databases, files he'd intercepted from the SPK, a detailed spreadsheet of the mafia's every transaction and detailed explanations of the profit margins they could expect to receive, Matt found what he was looking for.

Complete data deletion.

That meant Mello had put the contingency plan into effect.

And that meant all the bombs had gone off.

"Dammit, Mello…"

Matt wasn't expecting the explosives to be used so soon. He'd only finished with the system a month ago, and in many ways, still considered it a prototype. He'd networked a series of bombs into the mafia's technological command center. If the contingency plan were ever put into effect, the program would immediately purge all data and send a transmission from Mello back to him.

Or at least, that was the theory.

Matt never actually had time to test it. Mello was almost paranoid about his base being stormed by his enemies – both those working for Kira and those working against him. Once they finally obtained the Death Note, Kira's actual murder weapon, he wanted a contingency plan put in place, and he wanted it immediately.

Normally, Matt would try to reason with Mello, but even he couldn't argue his way out of the barrel of a gun. Lately, Mello had been just as dangerous, and just as unpredictable, as some of his craziest mafia henchmen. In those situations, what Mello wants, Mello gets. Because if he doesn't, you might actually end up dead.

Matt took a long drag, and tried not to think about it too much. The data was purged, and that meant there was a good chance that the transmission was recorded – all he had to do was wait for it.

...

...

_A game of soccer was going on, but Matt wasn't interested in playing. He wasn't even interested in watching. It'd been well over a year since Mello left, and since then, the games had gotten far less entertaining. All the other children were content to play by the rules, and were far too concerned with tallying up how many goals they scored rather than how many times they "accidentally" hit someone else in the face with the ball. It was boring. _

_Instead, Matt simply leaned against the fence, playing with his Game Boy. At least with that, there were monsters to battle and princesses to save. It wasn't actually exciting by any stretch of the imagination. He'd beaten that particular game three times already. But it was still better than soccer. _

_It was on afternoons like this that Matt wished he knew what happened to Mello. By now, most of the orphans had stopped entertaining theories. Some figured he was on the other side of the world, hunting after Kira. Others pictured him dead in a drainage ditch somewhere, long gone and long forgotten. A few even added a hearty 'good riddance' at the end. Since Mello wasn't there to punch them out, Matt made sure they got what was coming to them. _

_All the theories aside, he didn't know what had happened to Mello, but he did know one thing - no matter what Mello was doing, it was exciting. It was thrilling. Doing anything else would always pale in comparison. And that was something he didn't know how much he could actually miss until it was gone. _

_Matt sighed. He snuck a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He took a long drag, which he promptly choked on the moment he heard someone behind him call his name. _

"… _Matt?"_

_It was only a whisper, but he recognized the voice immediately. Matt spun around, crawling behind the bush._

"…_Mello?" _

_In some ways, he hadn't changed a bit. No matter how much time had passed, Matt could never forget the combination of blond hair, black clothes and piercing blue eyes. But that was where the likeness stopped. _

_Gone was the round, boyish face of childhood. It had long been replaced with a thinner, dirtier scowl. And those piercing blue eyes were harder, colder. They'd seen far too much in a short period of time. But if Mello had returned to the Wammy House with the intention of giving up, his eyes weren't betraying it. And even if they were, Matt probably wouldn't buy it._

"_Oh, God, it's to see you." Matt grinned. "Where have you been?! Why haven't you…"_

"_I need help, Matt." _

_The order was barked so quickly, Matt barely had a chance to process it. Mello never asked for help. Never. But this wasn't an exception, because Mello wasn't asking for it. He was demanding it. _

"_I've been out there more than a year, and I'm still only getting the cheap shit. It's do or die, kill or be killed, Matt. And the second I get enough in my pocket, someone else takes it right back." Mello snatched the cigarette from Matt's mouth and crushed it with his shoe without a second thought of remorse. "And believe me, there are a lot of sick, fucked up ways it can get taken back." _

_Matt nodded silently. Imagination filled in enough details to make his stomach flip. Being ambushed and pummeled by street gangs or robbed at gunpoint was probably on the lighter end of the spectrum. _

"_But what do you want me to do?"_

"_I need someone to watch my back." Mello answered, glaring back at Matt. "If I'm ever going to get enough power and enough dough to start putting pressure on Kira, I can't afford to be in the wrong place at the wrong time anymore. I can't afford to keep starting over." _

_Matt could hear desperation in Mello's voice, and that meant he'd probably started over several times. And if Mello now was anything like Mello was then, once or twice was already a step beyond unforgivable. _

"_You can do that. I know you can. You hacked into Roger's bank account when you were eight." _

"_I didn't take anything from it, though… Are you asking me to get you money?" _

"_I can get my own money." He hissed. "Less than a gram of coke'll fetch eighty pounds or more, if I could only stay alive long enough to get it."_

_Matt just blinked. _

"_The suppliers think I'm a liability. Nobody wants to invest in a liability. And while I might be able to outsmart my way out of most of it, when push comes to shove, I'm still just the scrawny bitch at the end of their dick." Mello growled, driving what was left of Matt's cigarette butt even farther into the ground. "Face it. Bad things happen to guys like me on the street corner, Matt." _

"_God, Mello…" _

"_And if you dare speak a word of this to Near, I'll slit your throat while you sleep. Got it?" _

"_I won't. I won't." Matt held up his hands defensively. "Near's not even here anymore. He…" _

"_What?!" Mello grabbed Matt by the shirt collar and pulled him forward. His icy stare burned with a vicious rage. _

"_Near's been gone for more than a month. He went to America to set up a special investigative agency. Special Provision for Kira, I don't know if they're operational yet, but they might be."_

"_That fucking bastard…" _

_Mello twitched as he pushed Matt back into the bush. He flung his backpack off his shoulder, and rummaged through its contents. He pulled out a pair of expensive-looking cell phones and handed them both to Matt. _

"_Hack these. Encrypt these. Do whatever you have to do to make sure nobody, not even Near, could trace the signal."_

"_Where'd you get…"_

"_I've marked all the hot spots on this map. I want you to find any and all security cameras in the vicinity of each spot. I want to know who goes where and when and how much they're pocketing from each deal."_

"_Wait - Deals for what?"_

"_And while you're at it, figure out how to scramble the feeds on command." Mello continued, not even listening to Matt. "I don't want anyone spying on me like I'm spying on them." _

_Matt wrinkled his nose. Everything that came from that backpack smelled like it had fallen down a sewer drain. _

"_I'll be back in three days." He added, slinging the pack over his right shoulder. Suddenly, time had become all the more valuable. With Near making steady progress, there wasn't a moment to lose. "Come after dark, and don't get caught." _

_A sly grin crossed Matt's face. _

"_Hey, since when do I ever get caught?" _

_Mello returned the grin. It was all the confirmation he needed. _

_At the time, Matt couldn't have had any idea what he was getting himself into. Mello's world wasn't glamorous, and it certainly wasn't easy. It was twisted. It was cruel. It was a place where the innocent grew cold and the cold grew calloused. It was a brutal place where mercy was for the weak and even the slightest hint of weakness could get you killed. Those who were lucky enough to survive in it weren't lucky. They were already dead inside. _

_But Matt didn't care. Wherever Mello went, excitement followed. And for the first time in more than a year, Matt suddenly wasn't bored. _

_When Matt saw Mello three days later, he got his first taste of what he had gotten himself into. Payment for his service came in the form of three freshly rolled joints, tucked carefully inside a used chocolate wrapper. It wasn't much, but it was all Mello had left. He had been robbed at gunpoint the night before. _

_He was starting over yet again. _

...

...

Matt sat glued to the screen for another hour, but no transmission came. He tried to make contact via cell phone, but the line was dead. And for the first time, he couldn't hide the paralyzing fear that Mello might actually be dead too.


	5. Luxuria

...

"Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life;  
it supports them all, lends strength to them all.  
Ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust."

- Marquis De Sade

...

...

The sun sliced through the darkness and burned the matted carpet. Mello, still awake, still alive, had hidden himself behind the mattress. He did it partly for protection, partly for security. But as tweaked out as he was, a good part of him was just trying to keep the knives of light from tearing him to oblivion as well.

He wasn't succeeding.

Mello's chest ached and his head throbbed. Every shrug of his shoulders, every breath, every heartbeat was agonizing. Everything was on fire, both inside and out, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

If there was one thing Mello loved about the meth, it was that every sensation was magnified ten thousand times over. Nothing escaped him – whether it was petty underling nervously trying to double cross him, or a trusted henchman who was just playing possum in the face of danger. He didn't need to eat. He didn't need to sleep. He was invincible!

Unfortunately, if there was one downside to the meth, it was that every sensation was magnified ten thousand times over. Now, a misplaced strand of singed hair against his cheek was a butcher knife carving his face apart. The fly buzzing at the base of his neck was a six-wheeled semi-truck, crushing his shoulders into the pavement and then backing up to run him over again. Mercifully, his left eye was swollen shut. Had he been able to open it at all, a mere flicker of sunlight would have been like a bullet in his brain.

For better or for worse, his mind was still racing.

In the back of his head he could hear God taunting him, telling him this was it – that he was going to die here. No, that he had already died. This was hell. There were maggots in the mattress, waiting to feast on his body and devour his soul. And he laughed.

Mello laughed at God and cursed him.

He would find Kira, rip his head off with his bare hands, and feast upon the body and blood of his adversary in a sadistic Eucharist the likes of which even Lucifer himself couldn't even imagine. He'd use his ribcage as a platter and his skull for a goblet. With the Death Note in his hands, he'd tear through the gates of Hell and burn the place to the ground. And he, not Kira – he, Mello, would be the god of the new world…

He laughed aloud, and a spasm of pain shook his entire body.

His gun clattered to the floor.

...

...

_Mello crouched inside a drainage ditch, not far from the hideout of one of the most infamous mafia bosses in the entire country. A few months ago, a small creek ran through here, but now, there was nothing. _

_He hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come. _

_It hadn't rained in three weeks. The long California summer hadn't even started, and already it felt like Hell. Leather clung to his skin like an unwelcome guest, and it was going to take considerably more effort than last time to peel it off. _

"_You sure you want to go through with this?" a familiar voice crackled through a tiny headset hidden in Mello's right ear._

"_Of course I'm sure, Matt." He answered, pulling a mostly-melted bar of chocolate out of his vest pocket. He licked the wrapper greedily, "It's taken two years to get this close. I'm not about to fuck it up now." _

"_Okay, okay…" the voice grew submissive. "Just thought I'd ask. This isn't your normal heist, you know. This is a whole different league." _

"_Yeah, I know." He answered, glancing down to the bulge in his leather pants, the gun that he'd come to rely on with increasing frequency. "If you back out on me now, I'll do the same thing to you too." _

"_Shit, Mello. Have I ever backed out on you before?" Matt scoffed. Mello just growled. "Hey… hey. Never in my life, I swear." _

"_Good." _

_Mello turned to the dead body lying face down in the ditch beside him. It was that of a blonde woman – tall, waiflike, barely eighteen. A single gunshot wound had not only taken her life; it literally blew her fucking brains out. _

_He felt a lump of remorse crawl up his throat, but he swallowed hard. _

_She was a drug addict, a prostitute and a thief. She was the kind of person Kira would kill on a slow day if he only knew her name. She had no future. Her life was meaningless. Her death, on the other hand, would be meaningful – meaningful because she would be part of Kira's downfall. And that, Mello kept reminding himself, is why she had to die. _

_She wasn't the first. And she certainly wasn't going to be the last. _

_Mello stripped her of her little black dress, but left her the dignity of her undergarments. He didn't need them. And although the sick idea of releasing his frustrations in her back door did cross his mind, he let it pass. _

_Not out of morals, however. No, Mello felt no shame in raping the dead. It was far more merciful than the alternative, an alternative he himself had been subjected to more than once. It was that the sun was already setting, and time was of the essence. _

_If he wanted to get everything he ever wanted, he first had to pay his dues. _

_Mello pulled on the black dress and then dumped out her purse. For such a tiny, delicate handbag, it was crammed with far too much stuff - a tube of whore-red lipstick, an almost empty tube of mascara, discarded hair pins, tissues, several hundred dollars worth of wadded bills and the small baggy of cocaine Mello had sold her less than an hour ago. _

_Mello made use of the makeup and pocketed the extra cash. He opened the bag and cut two lines on the ground. It would be a pity, after all, to just let it go to waste. _

_By the time he reached their base, the drugs had taken effect. His heart was pounding in his chest, but despite the increased sense of clarity and vigilance, he didn't notice it. All he saw was a pair of guards chatting up five or six prostitutes that had been collected for their boss' pleasure. _

_The man had a sick sense of beauty, but Mello knew that already. They were all skinny blondes in skimpy dresses, with sunken eyes and rotting teeth. They looked like the kind of bimbos that would inject heroin into their muscles instead of their veins, and they had the rotting sores on their arms to prove it. Some were doing this for the money. Some were doing it for their own twisted pleasure. A couple were just so tweaked that they probably didn't even know they were about to do it. The harsh reality of it all - compared to them, Mello was quite the find. _

"_I've got you on camera nine now." Matt whispered in Mello's earpiece. "There's about two dozen guys inside, not counting these guards. Don't worry, he always takes his girls alone, one at a time. So, you'll get your chance, but you'll only have about thirty seconds before you get company. And that's being generous." _

"_More than enough time, Matt…" he whispered._

"_I know… Do the deed, but get yourself out of there before things go bad."_

"_I'll be fine." Mello scoffed. _

_He wasn't worried. Together, they'd mapped out the entire compound, sector by sector, camera by camera. Matt had remotely rigged them all to show him exactly what he wanted to see. If target 4 so much as sneezed in sector C2, Matt would know about it. And Mello would make certain he never sneezed again. _

"_Good luck." Matt whispered, watching as Mello sauntered out of one frame and into another. _

_After only a few glances, it became obvious that the guards were idiots – the kind of hired help the boss put outside just to collect bullets. Not only were the oblivious to the gun strapped to Mello's right thigh, but they clearly couldn't tell that he was sporting a penis instead of a vagina. A few flirtatious advances whispered hoarsely in Russian, and Mello was taken exactly where he wanted to go. _

_The boss' inner sanctum was a contradiction in terms. It reeked of money and power, but was perfumed with decay. Moth-infested couches were draped with silk linens. Fine wine sat forgotten in cracked beer steins. The lights flickered as they dimmed. _

_The boss himself was a short corpulent man. He was already drunk, and Mello could tell immediately why he preferred to fuck in private. He obviously had a lot to compensate for, in both size and performance. _

_Mello leaned against the doorframe for a moment, letting one of the straps fall off his shoulder. He gave a naughty wink, sliding his tongue along the edge of his upper lip. _

_The rival mafia kingpin was instantly mesmerized. His eyes bulged eagerly, while his dick made a poor attempt at doing the same. _

"_trAhni menya" Mello rasped. He made certain the door closed behind him and slowly approached his target._

"_Ah… Another of Believe Bridesmaid's leftover mail order brides…"_

_"Da." Mello lied convincingly between the man's drunk, guttural laughs. _

_Fat, slippery fingers stumbled over a silver belt buckle. Mello leaned in closer, delicately tugging at the zipper of the man's pants._

"_Voydi v menya…" he moaned, running his hand up the inside of his thigh. _

_Mello pretended to smile as a thick hand caressed his bony shoulder blade. But that was as far as he was willing to let the sick man get. Before another hand could even wrap around Mello's narrow hips, he'd drawn his gun. He fired three bullets and watched the boss' brain splatter on across the couch. _

"_Mello, five moving!" Matt's voice immediately rang through the earpiece. Mello immediately cocked his gun. "2 sector D, 3 sector A. Five seconds, three… open fire!" _

_The henchmen were dead before they could even get through the door. _

_Mello was out of the compound in less than ten minutes – a flawless operation. _

...

...

This operation, though, wasn't flawless. The only similarity that Mello could fathom was that he got out in less than ten minutes. This time, his base was destroyed, the Death Note was gone, and all his henchmen were dead. If the taskforce hadn't killed them, by death note or by gun, the explosion certainly did.

No, he corrected himself with a sadistic grin – they weren't all dead. There was still one left…

Matt.

Mello grimaced as a low, harsh cackle spewed from the back of his throat. His back arched and he collapsed on his side in an agonizing spasm.

It wasn't over. It would never be over. Matt was still out there playing Grand Theft Auto in a world without pause buttons or cheat codes. And this… this was like a bonus level! Matt always played the bonus level. He'd be here any minute.

But then God started laughing.

Matt wasn't here.

And Mello's mind was racing.

A day had passed, maybe two, maybe three, four, twelve... Mello couldn't remember how many times the sun had threatened to fillet him like fresh eel and serve him up as sushi to the Japanese taskforce. Poached, but still raw, he'd be alive. Every piece of his body would be painfully alive as it was chewed and swallowed and spit back out, because it was rotten. He was so rotten that all three of Satan's faces would spew with disgust at even the smell of him. And God was right. God was right about everything, because Matt should have been here by now, and he wasn't!

Mello's eyes twitched as thoughts of Matt's demise clouded what margin of victory he had left.

Was he captured by the taskforce, hauled from the car at gunpoint only to take a bullet between the eyes? Did he try to run, and then get gunned down from behind? Did they force him off the road, over a guardrail and into the sea? And were they just waiting, casually chatting about the weather until his body floated back to the surface as a bloated disfigured corpse?

The more Mello's mind raced, the more paranoid he became.

Matt wasn't here. Matt wasn't coming. Matt was gone. Matt was dead! And Kira! Kira was standing at God's right hand, stroking his cock, jacking off to the site of Matt's dead body, moaning, crying out for more, more death, more pain, more names, more faces, always more names and faces!! Matt! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Matt. I'm sorry!

At that very moment, Mello would have shot himself between the eyes if he only had the coordination to pick up the gun.


	6. Gula

...

"Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us."

- Peter De Vries

...

...

The cursor blinked. Matt didn't.

He hunched forward on the couch, toying with a disconnected game controller, desperately waiting for a transmission. He pushed the buttons in rapid succession, imagining for a moment that he had even a sliver of control over what was happening. But he also did it out of fear. If his hands were idle for too long, Matt feared he would likely drive himself mad.

It'd been about thirty-six hours since the mafia base had been blown apart, and he still didn't know whether Mello was alive or dead.

His normally complacent, almost apathetic demeanor was as lost as his partner in crime. He hadn't slept. He'd barely eaten. He'd absentmindedly put cigarettes out in his beer, and taken a drink from his ashtray. And he prayed, no, he begged for that transmission.

The news was billing it as an epic standoff between the police and the mafia, between those who upheld the law and those who only held hostages. It was being heralded as a great victory for justice, and they were greedily milking it for everything it was worth.

A new development came out every ten minutes, every five on some stations. Matt didn't mind that. As long as the audiences viewing them are fickle, newscasts could always be trusted for one thing – if it bleeds, it leads.

There wasn't much the newscasts hadn't shown. There was one police officer that lost his life, but they weren't releasing his name or face. Everything else, however, was fair game.

The mafia was being displayed in as much gruesome detail as possible. Six bodies, said one report. Twelve, said another. The death count only rose as station after station tried to outdo the others. Each photo was more gruesome than the last. The twisted, charred remains of Mello's mafia henchmen were uncovered one by one. Reporters speculated that they died in the blast, but Matt knew the truth. The look of shock and abject horror frozen on their faces was all the proof he needed – They wouldn't have been scared of the bomb. They'd all suffered heart attacks before Mello could even detonate it.

Kira had gotten to them first.

Matt knew it wouldn't be long before someone else put two and two together. And when they did, it wouldn't be a victory for justice anymore. Every station would sing the praises of Kira, slayer of devils, divine judge, jury and executioner. The public would blindly agree, and everything he and Mello stood for would suffer another dramatic blow. Assuming, of course, that the latter was still alive somewhere.

But they wouldn't figure that out for another few days at least, Matt reasoned. They simply weren't that smart.

The reporters weren't even in agreement on who caused the explosion, let alone whether the mastermind behind it had survived. One station claimed it was the police that set off the blast. Another managed to guess that it was the mafia that blew up their own base. But they insisted on calling it the most ill-conceived, ridiculously desperate escape attempt in modern history.

"It wasn't ill-conceived." Matt growled, slamming the game controller onto the floor. Two buttons popped out. "Mello is still alive."

Yes, there was still hope, and Matt was going to cling to it until all reasonable options were exhausted. So far, not a single corpse pulled out of the rubble could be mistaken for Mello. And those searching the nearby streets for survivors continued to return empty-handed.

Therefore, until proven otherwise, Mello was alive. He just had to be.

"Come on, Mello… Talk to me. Where are you?" Matt clicked his lighter. He took a long drag, and let the smoke out slowly. But there was no answer, just the blinking of the cursor against a blank screen.

...

...

_The computer chimed. _

_Even with the shower running, Matt heard it clearly. His heart raced and his face lit up in a way that beating a video game could never quite produce. Transmissions from Mello were like letters from the princess. They opened up new, exciting worlds, with new adventures, new enemies and new challenges. _

_Matt stumbled across the tile as he rushed to acknowledge the transmission. While his mind and his fingers could move quickly and effortlessly, the rest of him always lagged a few seconds behind. The skillful act of sliding into jeans while running finished with a clumsy tumble onto the sofa. And rather than waste precious time turning his own body upright, Matt simply read the transmission upside down. _

'_I did it, Matt. I'm a made man. 945 Clydown Ave. Knock twice. The password for tonight is Chocolate.'_

"_As if there were any doubt." Matt smirked, and read on. _

'_I'll make sure you get what's coming to you. Just repeat after me. And whatever you do, don't drop it.' _

_Matt simply grinned. He shook the suds from his hair and reached for a shirt amidst the discarded pizza boxes and soda cans. He stuffed a pack of cigarettes into his pocket and a couple of slices of two-day-old pizza into his mouth. He glanced at the computer clock as he greedily swallowed a large lump of congealed cheese. It was just after midnight. The night was still young. _

_Matt followed Mello's directions, and he reached the mafia hideout in less than thirty minutes. Upon first glance, the abandoned factory looked like all the other buildings around it – condemned and forgotten. But condemned and forgotten buildings didn't need new locks, and that fact alone told Matt he had found the right place. _

_For a moment, he tried to picture Mello's triumphant return. He estimated it to be about one-third hooker and two-thirds hit man. The decapitated head of a rival mafia boss must have been a stunning accessory to the skinny black dress. And Matt would have given just about anything for a video feed of the boss' reaction when he caught a glimpse what the cat dragged in. _

_He knocked twice, and a small slit opened in the door. A pair of eyes stared back at him coldly, but said nothing. _

"_Chocolate." _

_After a few seconds of uneasy silence, the locks clicked. Matt could hear a metal beam being lifted up, and the large factory door cracked open. _

_The guard hadn't even locked the door when Matt first saw the severed head nailed to the wall. Although he had seen the video feed of Mello carrying it out of the other mafia compound, this was something completely different. This time, there was no screen to separate what was real from what was almost unreal. There was nothing to distract Matt from the pool of blood and brain tissue that had collected on the floor underneath it. There was nothing to stop the appalling smell of decomposing flesh from taking him by the throat and gagging him until he violently expelled everything he'd eaten in the past day. _

_Dizzily, he made his way through the hall, ignoring the guard's laughter as best he could. _

_The small hallway opened up into a much brighter room. The stench of decay was quickly replaced with that of expensive liquor and cheap perfume. Death itself had been replaced by debauchery. _

_To his left, a brawny bald man had just taken a redheaded whore down on a table. Three other men looked on with anticipation as she reached orgasm with an ear-piercing shriek. To his right, two smaller men had passed out in pools of their own vomit. One had already urinated on himself. The other might have been dead. _

_Matt gulped. His hands trembled as he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and nervously lit it. But he felt better after a few long drags. _

"_What took you so long?" _

_Matt looked up, surprised that he hadn't even noticed Mello in the middle of it all. Maybe it was because it had been years since he had actually seen Mello without a video monitor or heard him speak without a microphone. Maybe it was just how much Mello blended in with his new surroundings. Maybe, and Matt would never admit it to Mello, he just found himself more scared than excited. _

"_I… was in the shower…" Matt finally answered, dropping ashes on the carpet as he sat awkwardly on a chair next to Mello. _

_All that was left of the earlier raid was a smear of red lipstick across his right cheek. He had traded the dress for a pair of vinyl pants that remained mostly unlaced. He looked thinner than Matt had remembered. Every inch of him was firm, from his well-toned body to his long-hardened soul. His detached glare was unwavering, and anyone who stared into his cold blue eyes too long ran the risk of being painfully lost in them forever. _

_It was a sharp contrast to Matt, who looked as though he was just trying to hide under layers of baggy clothes and a pair of odd orange goggles. After years of sedentary scheming and late night munchies, he'd grown a bit soft around the middle, but no one could tell. _

_Whereas Mello looked dangerous, Matt couldn't have seemed more harmless. And that was just how Mello liked it. _

"_Now… about Kira…." Mello laughed. _

_He pulled out a chocolate bar, and devoured what was left of it in three large bites. He chased the chocolate with a few large mouthfuls of vodka, and then tossed the empty bottle over his shoulder. It shattered as it hit the floor, but no one seemed to notice. Smoothing out the wrapper, he rolled it up. Leaning forward, Mello quickly snorted a line of coke from the glass table. He thrust his head back and crinkled his nose, only to snort another line before looking back up at Matt. _

"_I want you to get to work right away. Set up cameras all over the base, and plug me into the ones you already monitor." He grinned. "There's a room on the second floor that'll make a great command center." _

_He grabbed another bottle and took a big swig before handing it to Matt. Matt took it cautiously, smelling it first. He took a small sip and it made his stomach turn over. _

"_You are still on my side, right?" _

_Matt looked between the bottle and Mello, between the last remaining line of coke and the gun hanging precariously out of his waistband. Only one of those things actually mattered. _

"_Always." _

_Mello smiled again, and stood up on the sofa. He drew his gun and cocked it. Broken glass wasn't enough to command anyone's attention, but that sure was. _

"_Hey!" Mello shouted. "Listen up!" _

_Everyone was suddenly silent. _

"_This here is Matt. He's a friend of ours."_

_Mello pulled a holy card out of his back pocket. The image was of Saint Michael, the archangel, standing triumphant and victorious over the demon he had just slain. Taking a stride across the table, he held the card precariously above Matt's lit cigarette. It caught fire, and Mello dropped it into Matt's hands. _

_Matt was surprised, but instantly understood what Mello meant by not dropping it. _

_Trying not to get burned, he juggled the flaming piece of paper in his hands until there was nothing left. _

"_As burns this saint, so will burn your soul. You enter alive and you will have to get out dead." Mello spoke clearly, decisively. And Matt repeated the initiation, word for word. _

_A cheer rose up from the mafia, and the revelry continued. Mello sat back down and did the last line. He'd never felt more alive!_

_He had it all. He had the mafia, and with it, he would soon have their money and their power. He had Matt. And soon, he was going to have Kira's head. It was only a matter of time. _

_By the time dawn broke, everyone else had passed out. Matt was alone with Mello, holding his blond hair out of his face as he vomited those feelings of superiority into a corner. _

...

...

Matt fiddled with the now-broken game controller. He knew there was once a time when he waited on a transmission from Mello with giddy anticipation. This wasn't anticipation. It was anxiety. And for just one moment, Matt wished he could just hit the pause button, even if it was just to grab a beer, smoke a joint and take a shit. But Mello didn't have a pause button. At least, not anymore. And that meant Matt wasn't allowed to have that luxury either.

"Mello. Mello. Mello…" he clasped his hands and repeated his mantra. "Just talk to me. Tell me where you are… What you want me to do… Just tell me you're alive..."

Matt almost swallowed his cigarette butt when, for the first time in days, he actually got an answer.

The sun stretched over the horizon, but Matt didn't notice it. Four different reporters flashed grotesque pictures of the latest mafia body in a war to outdo each other, but Matt didn't notice it. A bomb could have been detonated under his apartment and he still wouldn't have noticed it. The computer finally chimed, and a file started downloading.

It was audio. It was scratchy at best. But the voice was unmistakably Mello's.

"Oh, thank God…" Matt turned up the volume.

Mello's voice was frantic.

'Is this fucking thing recording? How do you even tell?! Fuck it, Matt. They're here. They're here and Ross is dead. They're all dead. This place is going up in flames. Matt, meet me at the motel on Industrial, south of town. Don't get yourself fucking caught. If I'm not there, then I'm already dead, and you need to get the fuck out of…"

The sound of gunshots rang out in the distance. Matt could hear voices that he couldn't identify, followed again by Mello's. The newscasters were right about something after all. It was a standoff.

The recording went dead.

"Industrial Boulevard… a mile out of town." Matt knew he could be there in forty-five minutes once rush hour ended, thirty-five if he sped. But the police were still combing the city, and that made the situation very delicate. He'd never been caught before, and he didn't intend to start now.

He opened feeds from hacked security cameras all throughout town, plotting his course with his usual precision. The search had spread mostly to the east and northeast, and the largest concentration of police activity could be easily avoided at the cost of only twenty more minutes.

Sighing, Matt put out the cigarette and rolled himself a joint. He took a long drag, and let the smoke float above him like a halo.

"Shit, Mello…" he prayed. "Just hang on. I'll be there soon."


	7. Avaritia

...

"He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody,  
in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all."

– James Arthur Baldwin

...

...

Mello was in hell. He was certain of it. But he wasn't tearing through the gates or burning the place to the ground. Instead, he was the only one burning.

Like a feral demon, the flames pinned him down against the rotting carpet. They wrapped around his left arm, and clawed at his chest. They pulled the flesh from his face in thin, agonizing strips, melting the blood and sweat as they congealed together, until Mello couldn't feel anything but overwhelming pain.

He wanted to scream, but he couldn't. The words clung to the back of his parched throat, content with just choking him.

Mello gagged as though he was about to vomit, but nothing came up. There was nothing that could come up. It had been several days since he'd last been bothered enough to eat, and now, he couldn't decide which was worse – the wrenching nausea or the incessant pangs of hunger. He wrapped his right arm tightly around his stomach, but it pulled and twisted even more. And it hurt. It hurt so badly that he began to seriously consider joining the fire in its demonic feast of cannibalism.

But he knew it wouldn't stop the agony. And the only thing that could was gone.

Mello couldn't remember when he'd sniffed the last of his stash. By now, he only vaguely remembered escaping the tremendous explosion, and how he'd actually landed in Hell was a complete mystery. It was a mystery so captivating, so compelling, that, at any other time, he'd be wracking his brain just to beat Near to the solution. But the fire, the worms and the roaches, the gut-wrenching spasms, the demons tearing at his skin and tying knots in his bones, the voiceless scream, the crippling pain– he couldn't focus his mind on anything for more than a few fleeting moments– and God. God was gone, leaving him in a tortured silence where there was nothing left to do but seethe.

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.

He had everything, absolutely everything – enough power to threaten the President of the United States, enough money to bribe even Kira into turning himself in. And he always had at least an eight ball on him, hidden within the seam of his vest, the lining of his jacket or the magazine of his gun, just in case. But now, it was all gone. He didn't have the mafia. He didn't have the Death Note. He didn't even have the shitty crank Bid liked to cut with drain cleaner to stretch his profit margin. And right now, even that sounded better than burning in Hell.

...

...

_The world of the mafia was cold, unsympathetic and heartlessly cruel. Although there were doubts at first, Mello easily shattered them when he threw the head of a rival boss at Ross' feet. Since that night, he had more than proven his obedience to the mafia. He had proven his ability to not only survive, but also to ruthlessly command. _

_The numbers spoke for themselves – Six million dollars in drug trafficking revenue alone, twice that amount from extortion. Mello had even secured almost one billion in weapons trafficking, and was just about to close another deal, so to speak. _

_He'd raised profits exponentially. He took care of his own, and wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He gambled with countless lives, and had never once lost. But perhaps what the rest of the mafia admired most about Mello was that no matter how much he had, it was never enough. He had to be the best, and he was willing to go to any extreme to make it happen. As long as they followed his lead, they wouldn't just be on top of their game. They'd be on top of the world. _

_So, in less than a year, Mello had risen from mere soldier to the Boss of the most feared mafia family in the entire country. And when he assumed command, he immediately appointed Matt as his Consigliere. Between them, they were unstoppable. Mello orchestrated every assault. He made sure the right people were always in the right places at the right times. Matt kept careful records of every transaction, every deal, every move the mafia made. Together, they made certain no corner was left unmonitored and no opportunity missed. _

_This was no exception. _

_Mello was a good two hundred and fifty miles outside his territory. The destination was a small truck stop northeast of Las Vegas and Mello was instructed to come alone. It sounded a lot like a trap, but the reward was worth the risk. If everything went according to plan, he would soon be in possession of a valuable piece of information that could not only solidify the mafia as a true world threat, but also help him turn the tide on Kira once and for all…_

_It was just after two in the morning when he pulled his motorcycle up to the pump. Half a dozen trucks lined the parking lot. The engines were still running, but the drivers were all asleep, making the station appear otherwise deserted. The diner was closed. The streets nearby were empty. Even the moon had taken refuge behind the clouds. _

_Despite being alone, Mello kept his helmet on and his face obscured._

"_Ross is at the bridge. He has you in his sights." _

"_Good." Mello whispered back. "Because they're not alone either." _

_Even though the night was dark and unforgiving, Mello had more than enough crank to keep his senses sharp. Nothing was lost, not even the near invisible movements of black against black. _

_He kept one hand on his gun as he walked behind the diner. _

"_You bring the dough?" _

_The voice was thin and nasal, but his mysterious informant was anything but. He sounded like a bird, but looked like a pig. Large arms and a bloated belly made him twice the size of Ross, easily. _

"_I said - did you bring the dough? Tony don't mess with punk ass…" _

_He answered by drawing his gun. His target, though, wasn't the portly informant, but rather the second man who was lurching in the shadows. _

"_We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way." Mello interrupted. "You, behind me. Slide your gun to my feet and both of you might live long enough to get paid. If not, the cook's gonna' be scraping your brains off the dumpster to make a few extra bucks." _

_At first, no one moved. Each second stretched for an eternity before a thin silver pistol slid next to Mello's left boot. _

"_The code." Mello cocked his gun and jammed the barrel into the other man's gut. _

"_All right, all right. Don't make no trouble, now." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a thin slip of paper. "Account name is for General Robert H. Stevens. ID: 08ST76GX. Password, 9QR76652K1V329." _

_Matt heard the information clearly, and within moments, had fed the data into his computer. _

"_Code's legit." He whispered. "I'm in." _

_Mello laughed. He jabbed the gun between two large folds of fat. _

"_That code's a fake, you bastard." _

_He watched as panic spread like a raging wildfire across the man's face. Clearly he'd never tested the code for himself. He was either too stupid, too lazy, or perhaps both. But he'd never admit it, and that alone gave Mello the upper hand. He nodded once. _

"_Oh no, it ain't." the man regained his wits a moment later and drew a gun of his own. "I want the two million you promised. If you don't pay up, I'm gonna' pummel you full of holes and then break your fucking…"_

_He never finished his threat. _

_Several shots rang out. Two came from across the bridge, blowing half of the man's skull off. Another was from Mello's gun, piercing the associate right between the eyes. He snatched the evidence, and sprinted back to his bike. _

_Tires screeched against the concrete as he kicked it into gear. He was gone before any of the truckers could even climb out of their cabins. Not far behind him, Ross sped out of sight as well. _

"_Shit, Mello, what the hell was that for?!" Matt's voice screeched over the motorcycle. "I said the code was legit!" _

"_Like I'm about to waste two million on that." A maniacal grin spread across his face as he sped down the highway, and he started to laugh. "Trust me. I've got a plan to really put the pressure on Kira and this'll all play a big part. If you can't handle the fire…" _

"_I never said I couldn't handle… Shit, Were you hit? Yes or no?" _

"_I'm fine!" he shouted. "How long until you've got full control?" _

_There was a silence on Matt's end as he ran a few calculations._

_Within five minutes, he knew he would able to breech their system. Within twenty-four hours, he would have not only cracked their entire grid, but also rewritten it. His changes would be so subtle that no one, not even the most gifted scientist at the facility, would be able to notice a difference. They would carry on as normal, not even realizing that they've lost complete control of all their operations._

"_By this time tomorrow, you will be the proud owner of an underground military testing site, with a full arsenal of decommissioned, yet still operational, nuclear warheads." _

"_Good. Very good." Mello smirked. "Now do what you do best." _

_For the first time, he could stand toe-to-toe with any world government, any international agency, even Kira himself, and be considered a true threat. With the push of a button, he would command the ultimate authority. He could force Kira's hand on public opinion alone – with his name and face a carefully guarded secret, Kira would be powerless to protect his brave new world against complete nuclear annihilation._

_The facility had other benefits too. The warheads themselves were capable of long-range attacks. Unarmed, they could be used to transport valuable secrets without being traced. Being in the middle of a vast unpopulated desert, the site would also be an excellent place to conduct negotiations, hold hostages and make exchanges. They could dispose of anyone out there, with confidence that the vultures would find them long before the authorities ever would. _

_Mello laughed - That was a feat even Near would never manage. _

_By the time Mello reached the hideout, the sun was just coming up over the horizon. A few of his underlings were still waiting for his return, but most didn't wake up until the door slammed against the wall. _

"_We're in." _

"_Boss!" They jumped to their feet as Mello tore off his helmet and threw it in the corner. They glanced him over, frozen in shock. _

_The corners of his lips curled in a twisted laugh and his left eye twitched. He had been living off meth and chocolate for the better part of a week, and it was clearly taking its toll. _

"_Matt will have full control of their nuclear arsenal by the end of the day. I want five, but you can auction the rest to the highest bidder. Start with five billion dollars. Korea will be willing to pay eight, and I can probably get a group of Palestinian terrorists to buy in for sixteen or seventeen if you give me forty eight hours."_

_The other members of the mafia glanced at each other. _

"_It was just like you said, boss." Humphreys nervously grinned._

"_Now someone better get me some fucking chocolate!" _

_A couple of the newest initiates sped off. One stumbled over a footstool. The other hit his face on the door frame. But neither of them stopped. They already knew what could happen when Mello got that look in his eyes. You didn't question it. You didn't cross it. You just obeyed it, and if you moved fast enough, you might escape with your life. _

_Mello watched them go. _

"_And just what are you staring at?" _

_The rest of his men looked at each other nervously. Finally, someone dared to speak. _

"_You're bleeding, boss." _

"_Fucking nonsense…" Mello looked down, surprised to find his leather vest was torn, and that his pants were stuck to his leg. He pressed his fingers against his left side. Most of the blood had dried, but some came off on his hand. There was a third gunshot; he remembered it now. It must have grazed his hip. _

_He looked back at his henchmen, and immediately licked his hand, ostensively wiping the look of surprise from his face. _

"_Stop fucking staring, you morons. I don't feel a damn thing." _

_Another door crashed against the wall as he stormed out of the common area. He snatched a pair of chocolate bars from the two clumsy buffoons before they could even react. The wrapper tore in his teeth, and he spit it over the stair rail, hitting one of them in the face. _

"_I've got work to do, so don't disturb me unless it's really important." he snapped the bar in his teeth. "And you call this chocolate? Get me fucking a truckload next time." _

...

...

The blades of sunlight were receding into the carpet from whence they came. The taunting voice of God was gone. The decrepit motel was gone. All that Mello had left was pain.

His entire body was so tired, so weak. Staying awake was becoming increasingly difficult. He didn't know how much longer he could fight it. But he had to… he just had… to…


	8. Acedia

...

"An oppressive sorrow, which to wit,  
so weighs upon man's mind,  
that he wants to do nothing;  
thus acid things are also cold..."

- St. Thomas Aquinas

...

...

The sun bled against the horizon, slowly seeping through the clouds and smog. A few lingering car horns echoed in the distance, but the traffic was already starting to let up. It was about time, Matt thought to himself.

He flicked his cigarette out the window, and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He glanced idly at the laptop computer sitting on the passenger seat. The closest police radar was three miles west, and moving away from him at about thirty-five miles per hour. There was another one about ten miles north, sitting at a gas station about a block from the highway. Neither would likely pose a threat.

Next to the computer was a small backpack that Matt had wedged in front of the seat. He wasn't quite sure exactly what he'd need, but had filled it with supplies – a couple bottles of water, a flashlight, a blanket, a first aid kit, a very large bar of chocolate… He also had a gun, but it wasn't in the backpack. He kept that safely tucked inside his vest.

"Thirty eight hours. Almost two days…" Matt whispered to himself. "A lot can happen in two days…"

A flicker of worry crossed his face, and he wondered if Mello would even still be there.

Mello had always been a bit reckless, but recently, he'd been so out of control, it bordered on carelessness. He threatened the President of the United States over an unsecured line. He allowed one of his henchmen to drive an entire truckload of chocolate bars to their hideout in broad daylight. He placed his trust in a god of death, which, as far as Matt could observe, might have just been a hallucination, to guard the hideout after he already knew his security had been breached and his location discovered by at least three secret organizations. He was losing ground against Kira at a rapid pace, and didn't seem to even notice it. In the past few months, Mello was checking in with Matt less and less, but doing more and more.

It was a dangerous combination, and one that made Matt rather scared of what might happen if he actually did find Mello still at the meeting spot.

One wrong move, and he might end up dead.

...

...

_The sun stalked through the window. It crawled slowly over the growing pile of unwashed laundry, past four or five pizza boxes and countless empty cans that once contained energy drinks. It crept up the side of the couch, and Matt groaned. He had hoped to get some sleep now that the job was done. _

_But sleep was just like Kira – painfully elusive. _

_Matt lazily pulled his goggles over his eyes and yawned. He glanced at his computer screen, scrolling haphazardly through the various windows. It was business as usual. Profit margins from meth and cocaine alone had increased by 2% in the past month. The Iranian government was interested in purchasing the last of the nuclear warheads for a cool twelve billion. There was a new telephone call intercepted between Roger and someone from the Japanese taskforce. He made a note to examine that one more closely later as he reached for a much-needed cigarette. _

_It had been a very long and very busy week. And in the course of that week, Matt probably consumed his weight in energy drinks and caffeine pills. _

_It began with the successful kidnapping of Japanese NPA director Kanichi Takimura. Matt still didn't know the details surrounding his sudden death, but he suspected it was actually Mello that killed him. He'd listened to several of the interrogation tapes already, and there was almost no limit to the amount of torture Mello was willing to inflict. _

_Capturing Sayu Yagami was Mello's idea, but it was Matt that helped him carry it out. He planned every step of the hijacking, from buying off the pilot to modifying and then launching the untraceable missile that carried their hard-earned reward. Mello, meanwhile, took care of the hostages. He put the hit on any of his own men that were involved in the trade. And once he finally had the notebook in his possession, he dealt a devastating blow to Near as well. _

_Matt stretched, popping his back. He scanned the small living room for what was left of the takeout. Seeing nothing but greasy cardboard and half a carton of rotting chow mein, he finally pushed himself off the couch. _

"_Kira's probably sweating bullets by now…" Matt chuckled to himself as he rummaged through his kitchen. _

_He emptied crumbs from a bag of chips into his mouth, stopping only when he heard the door to his apartment open. Only one other person had a key. _

"_Mello? It's broad daylight for Christ sake…" Matt rolled his eyes and turned around, only to find two large mafia henchmen standing where Mello should have been. The door slammed behind them, and Humphreys drew his gun. The bag fell to the floor, spilling crumbs everywhere._

"_Hand over the device." Bid drew a gun as well. _

_Matt gulped. This wasn't the first time Mello had sent his underlings over on an errand. But it was a pretty rare occasion that they came in with guns drawn. _

"_Shit, I told Mello last week that I already programmed the first detonator. But it's still a prototype. I haven't had time to test it. Been a little busy, you know…" Matt kept his hands up as he slowly inched toward his schematics. "Espionage, hostages… keeping up with your bottom line…" _

"_Yeah, we get the idea. Now grab your plans, and come with us." _

"_Right now?! You have got to be kidding me." Matt rolled his eyes. He didn't even try to hide the long, dramatic yawn that followed. "Can't it wait until… well, I can't really say morning, can I?" _

_Humphreys just crossed his arms. His reply was simple, yet incredibly effective. _

"_Mello's orders." _

_Matt yawned again, but nodded._

"_All right, all right…" Matt couldn't argue with that. He rolled up the plans and threw a pair of thin wire cutters into a backpack along with his other tools. "But it's gonna' take at least eight hours to wire the explosives throughout the base."_

"_Then you'd better get started." Bid growled. "Mello's been cursing about this rig of yours all fucking night. He wants it up. And he wants it up NOW." _

_Again, Matt couldn't argue. _

_The Death Note was invaluable. It was the most dangerous weapon that had ever been touched by human hands – not just because of how effectively it could kill, but because it had the power to turn men in to gods. For the first time in human history, the pen truly was mightier than the sword. One person could single-handedly defeat large armies. They could bend the will of entire nations. They could rule the world. Kira was proof of that. _

_And now, the Death Note was in Mello's possession. _

_Getting it was hard enough, Matt reasoned. Keeping it may very well prove to be impossible. No matter how untraceable the missile, no matter how many lose ends Mello tied up, no matter how many people the mafia executed, there would always be someone else trying to seize that kind of power for themselves. The chances of being backed into a corner were simply too great to ignore. And in that light, rigging one's hideout to explode wasn't all that crazy… _

_But that didn't mean he had to look forward to it._

_If Matt had somehow forgotten why he avoided the mafia base if at all possible, he was reminded of it the instant he was ushered through the door. There was blood caked on the walls. The smell of stale vomit lingered in the floor cracks. Mello's trophy kill still hung in the hallway, but maggots had almost devoured what was left of the skin. Matt's stomach churned violently, and he swallowed his own bile. _

"_I'd better get… get right to work…" he managed to utter as he climbed over the naked body of a discarded hooker. _

_Evidence of the previous night's party was everywhere, from torn panties and broken glass to about an ounce of pure cocaine still sitting in a lump on the table. _

_The mafia itself didn't fare much better. Amidst the stupor that surrounded him, Matt suddenly realized why Mello must have called on Bid and Humphreys. As big as they are, they must have been the first to sober up. _

_Most of the mafia, however, was noticeably nursing a collective hangover. A few were still passed out, their limp bodies littering the spare corners. Those that were unlucky enough to wake up were busy emptying their stomachs. He walked by, just as one of the younger thugs had even vomited messily over the back of the couch. Matt wrinkled his nose and tried to avoid looking at it as he calculated how many charges he'd need in such a large room. _

"_Three…" he whispered to himself, trying desperately to ignore everything else. "I can definitely do it in..." _

_Matt suddenly stopped. _

"…_Mello?" _

_The leader of the mafia lay across a table in an uncomfortable sprawl. Someone had draped his leather jacket over him like a blanket, suggesting that he'd probably been out for quite some time. Because of the jacket, Matt couldn't see the large puddle of vomit drying under Mello's cheek. But he could see a thin, spindly arm dangling off the edge of the table. He reached out to touch it, but Ross stopped him._

"_Don't wake him." The larger man grunted through his splitting headache. "You have no idea how much it took to knock him out."_

_Matt glanced nervously between Mello and his underling. _

"_How much… Wait. You drugged him?" Ignoring Ross completely, he picked up Mello's limp wrist and let it drop again. Mello didn't even make a sound._

"_He's been up for about eight days straight. Everyone's got to crash sometime." Ross growled. He rummaged through the litter under the table until he found what he was looking for. "Sometimes it just takes a little persuasion." _

_He tossed the half empty bottle of Temazepam at Matt. _

"_Keep 'em. You look like you could use a downer yourself." _

...

...

Matt slowly pulled his car up to what was left of a shady motel. He checked his radar one more time, visibly confirming that he hadn't been followed, and then pulled the key from the ignition.

This deserted stretch of Industrial Boulevard, like anyone unlucky enough to stumble upon it, had clearly been left to rot. Only a few buildings managed to survive the quake of 1994, and those that did were in ruins. The motel itself was as fragile as a house of cards. All it really needed was another good storm to level it completely.

"Just might get that tonight…" he whispered eerily to himself.

There was more than just an uneasy chill in the air. Thunder rumbled nearby and lightning crackled over downtown. The wind had picked up considerably in the last hour, and as Matt stepped out of the car, it snuffed out his cigarette.

He turned on the flashlight.

The trail of blood had been washed away, but rain alone wasn't enough to hide the recent footprints. They started from the highway, tottering into the gravel until they ended in a hard skid mark. There was no doubt in his mind. Mello had been here, and maybe, he still was.

Matt followed the unsteady trail closer to the building. The stench of death clung to it like a damp fog, and he covered his face with his glove to drive back the now-overwhelming urge to vomit. For a moment, he thought he might have succeeded. But when he saw a series of bloody hand prints, he lost what was left of his composure along with his most recent meal.

The door rattled in the wind, finally breaking off its last rusty hinge. Matt jumped backward with an ungraceful stumble. The noise echoed in the distance, and then there was silence again.

"…Mello? Are you… in there? " he clumsily climbed back to his feet and turned the flashlight back on.

There was no answer. So, slowly, nervously, Matt forced himself to peer inside the decrepit motel room. At first, he saw nothing but a dark lump, but the light soon came to rest on an unloaded gun and its discarded magazine clip.

"…Mello?"

There was still no answer.

His hands shook as he took a few steps into the room. The lump behind the mattress was a body. And suddenly, he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or even more afraid.

"Oh God… " Matt fumbled with the flashlight, somehow managing not to drop it. He struggled to think, yet alone speak. The former leader of the mafia was a far cry from the criminal mastermind he once was. "Mello. Oh my fucking God, Mello…"

It was a sight that would make even Kira flinch.

His thin frame wasn't just lean anymore. It was painfully emaciated. His entire body curled in on itself, each limb contorted in unconscious agony. He was soaked in blood, covered in filth, and then there was the burn.

The skin on his face still looked wet. It had blistered, broken open and then blistered again. What hadn't blistered was swollen and peeling, providing a feast for the various insects that had come to gorge themselves the festering corpse. The large wound stretched down his left shoulder, around his left arm, and past his hip. What was left of his leather clothes had melted onto his skin, giving him the stench of old glue mixed with spoiled mayonnaise. He looked like he had fallen through hell, and hell itself had spit him back out.

It was then that Matt knew Mello was dead.

He had to be, because no one could live through that.


	9. Epilogue

"Mello… oh god, Mello… Mello… God… No…"

Matt knelt by Mello's side, shining the light into his face. Part of him was dying to bite into his glove, pull his hand free and check for even a faint pulse. The other part of him was too terrified that he wouldn't find one. And he decided not confirming Mello's death, for at least another few minutes, was worth all the hope in the world.

So he lifted Mello's broken body into his lap, and just held him.

"Mello… I'll stop Kira. I… I promise…"

Weakly, but purposefully, Mello's wrapped his fingers around the rosary that was still around his neck. He was in pain, unimaginable pain, but for the first time in an eternity, he felt warmth that soothed more than it burned. He heard a voice, a kind familiar voice amidst the agony. And out of the darkness he saw a bright light.

His lips trembled. His whisper was hoarse.

"Confiteor Deo omnipoténti… quia peccávi nimis cogitatióne, verbo et ópere… mea culpa… mea… mea culpa…"

"… M…Mello?"

"…mea maxima… culpa…"


End file.
